In the small town she found more wary people who only agreed to feed and care for Gauner for the silver she proffered. In her headlong rush to follow Ida, Andronikos had forced on her a small purse that clinked with coins. "I am indebted to you so much already," she protested.
He shook his head. "You brought Albertos. I could never repay you for that."
She accepted the purse, and all along the way she was glad she had had coin to wrest what little information the people could offer.
She tried to ask the man who led Gauner off about the pilgrim armies who should have passed by here. The man would not speak, but simply gestured to the small church in the center of the village.
"What? I know they were Christians. But did they pass here?"
He pointed more insistently. She followed his gaze and shrugged. She could do with a little prayer even if it wasn't in the Latin tradition.
As she approached the church she noticed a man in clothing more like her own than the locals'. She peered through the glare of midday sun. She was startled when a voice called out in German, "Elias? It cannot be! You are dead!"
It was Hans, the man who had helped her and Albrecht escape Reinhardt's clutches. He sat on the step of the church, his right leg straight out in front of him, splinted and bandaged.
"Hans, how did you get here? What happened to you?"
The man cocked his head, recognizing his own dialect of German. He stared into Elisabeth's face, searching it for some explanation. All at once his eyes grew round. "My God, I cannot believe it. It's you. It's the Lady Elisabeth. A knight?" He stared her up and down, then asked, "Do you have any food?"
She sat down next to him and placed her helm on the step on her other side. "I do," she affirmed and untied the leather bag she had at her belt, pulled it open and reached in. She brought out a small packet wrapped in oiled cloth, opened it and offered its contents to Hans. He snatched the whole packet from her hands and started to shove food into his mouth without pausing to identify it.
"Wine?" he said through a full mouth.
"Water," she said simply, "and lucky to have that."
He shrugged. "Water I can get. Although . . . " He looked at her pleading, "not until they get around to me. Can you give me some of yours?"
She pulled the wineskin from her belt and gave it to him. "It's not good water. Probably no better than they have here."
Elisabeth tried to question him while he polished off most of her food. He waved her questions away, indicating that he would eat first. Popping one last morsel into his mouth, he said around it, "I'm with the Duke's army . . . or I was. Duke Welf. Reinhardt tossed me out when . . . " He looked up at her angrily. "Now that reminds me, you were supposed to reward me for . . . "
She put up a hand. "I know all about it. Reinhardt caught you looking for the gold I told you about. I am sorry. I will make it up to you somehow. I promise."
"How do you . . . where did you . . . where is Albrecht?" he finally finished.
"Constantinople. He was wounded at Merzifon."
"Merzifon?" Hans asked.
"You don't know about Merzifon? Well, I suppose you wouldn't. Never mind. What happened to you?" She indicated his leg.
Hans looked down at it. "My horse fell on me. They had to leave me here, God rot them." He looked back at her. "Reinhardt was just as glad when you disappeared. He was your husband and that meant the estates were his free and clear. Everyone assumed you and Albrecht had gone away to stay. He had men looking for you for some time, secretly, so he could kill you both and make sure you did not suddenly turn up. He was suspicious of me, so he did not send me. He did find something out, though. One of his men came back from the Danube with some news that made him laugh. No one told me what it was."
Elisabeth grinned sardonically. "Then he got what he wanted. He never wanted me, not as a wife anyway." She shrugged, "So be it. What about my father? Has there been any word?"
He considered her speculatively. "So you have not found him. That was the one thing Reinhardt was most uneasy about. He did not want to get your estates only to learn that you never had inherited them in the first place." He shrugged. "The only thing we ever heard about your father and his party was that they traveled farther west and get a ship at Marseilles. Don't remember why."
That was the first real intelligence she had gotten about her father after all this time. She realized that his heading west and sailing from Marseilles was the reason she had never learned anything. They had taken entirely different paths. Who could know what happened after that?
"I have to take a piss. Will you help me get up?" Hans asked. She willingly put her arm under his and helped him stand. Acting as a crutch, she helped him a short distance away.
He looked at her crotch. "How do you manage . . . ?" he began.
"I manage. Can you?" She gave him a challenging look.
"You've changed," he said. As he relieved himself, she looked away and chuckled.
"You don't know the half of it."
He pointed to a bench under a tree and said, "Let's get some shade. This fucking place is like an oven. Or Hell."
In the little shade they shared their stories. Elisabeth refused to be led into talking about her transformation. Hans finally stopped trying. She also kept her details of the massacre at Merzifon to a minimum.
He told her that after Reinhardt had dismissed him, he had found a place as a squire to the Ritter Conrad von Niederhof who was serving as a knight in Duke Welf's army. The old Duke had had an illustrious career as a war leader, but now he wanted to end his days fighting the heathens in the Holy Land. His party joined the Duke of Aquitaine's and another commander named Hugh de Vermandois. Yes, Ida was with them. She brought along the Archbishop of Salzburg as her chaperone." The last word was spoken bitterly.
Hans made no pretense of his opinion of that. "She's drop-dead gorgeous, especially for an old woman, but she'd no business coming on pilgrimage with us. She's been trouble every step of the way."
Elisabeth was sitting forward with her forearms on her thighs, staring at the dry ground between her feet. "I heard you were all trouble."
Andronikos had had time only to tell her of the arrival of the Aquitainian-Bavarian pilgrims, how they were out of control throughout Byzantine territory and how Alexios had dispatched Pecheneg mercenaries to escort them directly to Nicomedia. The pilgrims engaged the Pecheneg in battle. It was only when the Dukes of Aquitaine and Bavaria swore to the Basileus that they would keep the unruly force in control that he let them proceed. Most were escorted to Nicomedia, but some of the commanders stayed in Constantinople. I got a sweet billet with some no-balls high mucky-muck."
Elisabeth, who had said nothing about her own billet in Constantinople, let the insult to her benefactor go. "So when did they move on? The pilgrims you came with, I mean."
"They were heading to Konya. Thought that Count William would have taken it by then. We were getting low on everything. The Nivenais bastards already got all the food there was to get out of these pigs." He indicated the people who moved about on their daily chores around him.
"How long ago?" she insisted.
"A fortnight maybe? The days go by much the same here. You are going to take me with you, aren't you?" His eyes begged her to say yes.
She looked at him. "I cannot now, but I promise I will come back for you. I owe you at least that."
He looked resigned. "You promise," he said tentatively.
"On my honor as a knight of the Cross." She made the sign on her breast, then looked away to hide the look that crossed her features when she realized how little honor she had seen among those knights.
His look was sardonic, but he kept his thoughts about her knighthood to himself.
Elisabeth arrived at Konya to find it all but deserted. From a mullah in a nearby village she learned that indeed Count William of Nevers had tried to take the city, but failed and moved on. His eyes burned with pride as he recounted that tale, but they grew dismal when he
went on. "Then we saw the bigger army. Most of us fled. But we took all the food with us. And everything else we could carry. When they got here the place was of no use to them, the Infidels. They got a taste of what Allah, may he be praised, has in store for them. For you as well, dog of a Christian."
Elisabeth thought she ought to get away from here quickly, but she ventured, "Where did they go?"
The man leered with savage delight. "Herakleia." The knife-edge sharpness of his words chilled her to the core.
Astonished that she had made it out of even a deserted town alive, the animosity toward pilgrims understandably great, she pressed on. Soon she discovered that every well the road passed was blocked. The villages were deserted and emptied of anything she or Gauner could eat. She was sorry she had been so generous with Hans. She pressed on.
Forced to camp without a fire, she rode on. Finally she saw before her some hills rising about the plain. The road, it appeared, wound its way between them. A presentiment made a chill go down her perspiring back even before she saw the swirling black shapes in the sky. She knew as she rode closer that the birds were carrion birds as she had feared. There was an untold number. She urged the already dehydrated Gauner to a faster pace. She kept her eyes dead ahead, waiting to see the first body, not remembering to protect herself from ambush.
As she rode into the defile she started to see them. First a score, then a hundred, then innumerable corpses, most already picked at by the carrion birds. She scanned the bodies as the tears ran down her cheeks, making the stifling heat under her helm humid and even more unbearable. Men, all men. No women. She saw a long narrow pool of water ahead alongside the road in a small widening of the track between the hills. There were so many bodies next to it she almost could not see the water. But Gauner saw it and pulled forward. She dragged back the reins to keep him in check.
Elisabeth scanned the space before her. She saw it rising above the barrier of the bodies. Some sort of box. Wood with cloth of some sort. A litter! She leapt from Gauner's back and ran to the litter. "Ida, Ida!" she called. "Where are you?" She dashed about the litter looking at the bodies. She caught sight of what looked like a woman's cloak. The woman was mostly hidden under other bodies, but she managed to pull her out and turn her over. It was one of Ida's serving-women, Elisabeth saw. And she was quite dead, though how she had died Elisabeth could not tell. She was bloody enough that if there was a wound, it would require a search to find it. She abandoned the woman's corpse and continued her search.
She had the impression that Gauner, no longer restrained, had found his way through and over the bodies to the pool and was undoubtedly drinking his fill. Her own throat was parched, but she would not leave off her search.
She heard a small noise from the direction of the overturned litter. It came again, a faint moan. She dashed to the litter and lifted it to look under. There indeed was a body, a woman's body. The woman's clothing was soaked with blood and caked with dirt, nevertheless were clearly of rich quality. Her face was . . . it hardly looked like a face. She knelt by the woman and lifted her upper body in her arms. "Your Grace?"
The moaning stopped. "Who ith that?" she lisped. The voice was Ida's, recognizable in spite of its hoarseness.
"It's Elias, your Grace. You met me in Mölk. Remember, we talked about my late sister."
One sunburned arm lifted so that the woman could shade the one eye that could open. Half of her face was crushed, the ridge around that eye, her cheekbone and the jaw on that side bloody and disfigured. It was a miracle she could talk at all. It was a miracle she was alive at all. "I remember. The knight who wath tho thmitten with me."
Elisabeth laughed. "That's the one. What happened to you?"
The woman sighed. "A horthe'th hoof happened to me." She had fallen from the litter when her bearers dropped it, rolled out of it and under one of the Turk's horses. Had it been a destrier like Gauner she would not be alive.
The Margravina was struggling to rise. "Wait, your Grace. Let me get my horse. I'll get you on it somehow and then we can ride back for help." She looked about. "Is everyone dead? What about the Nivenais?"
"I don't know. We got here and the men went mad. They thaw the pool. But it wath poithoned."
Elisabeth looked down at her. "Poisoned? Oh sweet Jesu!"
She leapt to her feet and ran toward the pool, jumping over and sidestepping corpses of both pilgrims and Turks. She rounded the tallest pile of bodies and found Gauner. He was unsteady on his feet. Foam spewed from his muzzle. His legs seemed to be buckling. He collapsed and fell, landing hard in the water, making it splash up away from where Elisabeth approached. The horse lay with his head half in the water, breathing heavily, erratically. Being careful not to touch the water, she knelt by him and leaned out to stroke his neck. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She sobbed. "Oh Gauner!" The horse rolled its eye at her. Its confusion and pain were evident. Wiping her sweaty forehead on her arm, where the mail was blistering hot, she reached for her dagger. In one quick movement she put her destrier out of his misery. "Goodbye, old friend. Tell Elias I am so sorry when you see him."
She knelt, still sobbing, until she remembered Ida. She got to her feet and gave the horse one last look, realizing with regret that her saddlebag was underneath him. She ran back unsteadily to the overturned litter. Ida's eyes were closed and she hardly seemed to breathe. "Oh no," Elisabeth moaned, kneeling by the woman. She put her ear to the Margravina's breast over her heart. She remembered bitterly longing to rest her cheek there, what was it, centuries ago? The heart was still beating.
Elisabeth stood and looked around again. For the first time she noticed the stench. Carrion birds eyed her hostilely. She saw the poles that lifted the litter and went to one and pulled it out. It was slow work, and she thought she might pass out from the heat and the effort. Somehow she got both poles free. She reached for the wineskin at her belt and remembered Ida's parched lips. She dashed back to the woman, who now lay under some cloth Elisabeth had torn from the litter curtains. She knelt and lifted the woman's head. She tried to trickle some water in her mouth, but it just ran over her teeth and lips and off her jaw into the dirt. There was almost none left. She left the skin by Ida and went back to her task.
Stripping the tunics off two bodies, the chain mail already stripped from all of the knights and soldiers, she went back to the poles. She slipped the ends into the sleeves of the first shirt, then the other ends into the sleeves of the other. She used the laces that held up britches or chain mail leggings to tie the two together at their hems. It was a stretcher of sorts, but what else was there to be done?
She returned to Ida and gently lifted her in her arms. She was so light! Ida was a petite woman, but Elisabeth realized that much of the impression was due to her own developed muscles. Life as a knight, in fact if not by right of chivalry, had made her immensely strong. She would need that strength now, if she was to walk back to Byzantine territory dragging the stretcher with the Margravina behind her. She settled the woman on the stretcher, then went to retrieve her wineskin. As she did she scanned the bodies for the garb of noblemen. She saw knights, but no one was more richly dressed. Had these men, nobleman and commanders, deserted their armies like Raymond, Conrad, the Lombard noblemen, the two Stephens and Odo had? Leaving Ida to suffer and die or be taken and forced into slavery? Her anger was so intense, her head throbbed so painfully, she was forced to lean forward and retch out what little was in her stomach. No one looked like a high churchman either. So Ida's own elected Archbishop had abandoned her too.
When she got back to the makeshift stretcher, she saw that Ida was moving under the cloths that shaded her. She parted them to see the blue, uninjured eye peering out at her. "Where'th you horth?"
"Dead. Poisoned. But I made this stretcher. I will pull it behind me. We will get back to safety." She pulled out the wineskin, propped up the woman's head and poured the last few sips of the water in her mouth. Ida sputtered but swallowed it all.
"God blet
h you, my champion," Ida croaked.
In spite of the horror of their situation, Elisabeth's heart thrilled at the words.
Elisabeth wrapped a length of cloth around her head to shade it from the sun. She strode forth into the hills with one pole of the stretcher in each hand. Her elbows were bent so she could press her arms in to help take the weight. It was negligible now, but she knew it would soon seem heavier. Her helm was back at the scene of the massacre with the rest of her armor. She could not carry it or wear it. All she had now was her sword belt, sword and dagger. And the Margravina of Austria.
Elisabeth had always had an instinctual sense of direction. Glancing at the path of the sun as she walked, she made her way west by northwest, hoping to intersect the road she had traveled before. She knew the chances of survival were minuscule, but all she could do was persevere. She realized soon enough that trying this in the heat of the sun was insane, so she found a place where a rocky outcrop created shade and dragged the stretcher toward it. "We'll continue when it gets dark. It's October now, I think, so it should not be long."
"I am tho thirthty," the woman, with half her face crushed, moaned.
Elisabeth felt her own heart sink. "I know, your Grace. I am so sorry. There is no water."
She sat next to the woman's shuddering body and waited for dark. She longed to see Maliha's soft honey-colored eyes again, to tousle Tacetin's dark curls, to smile and laugh with Albrecht. She said aloud, "Oh, Elias, I am so sorry I have failed so utterly. But if I must die like this, I am glad at least you were spared that. If I did nothing else right, I tried. I saved Albrecht, Elias. He is happy again now. You would like Andronikos. He dotes on him. You would approve."
A sound came from under the cloth that veiled the Margravina. Elisabeth reached and pulled the cloth away from Ida's face. "Eliath," the woman croaked.
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